Doctor Copernicus (10 page)

“I do not understand.”

“The point is—” Novara began, but once again he was interrupted, this time by Ziegler who lunged forward and jabbed a trembling finger at Nicolas’s breastbone,
crying:

“The point is that the rot can be stopped! Yes yes, it can be stopped by a few determined men, a few good minds—
we
, sir, we can stop it!”

“How, pray?” Nicolas snapped. He disliked intensely this rabid young man, whose face under the force of his passion had turned a kind of furious purple.

“Jacob,” Novara said softly. “Calm now, calm.” He turned to Nicolas. “You see how strongly our feelings run? How should it be otherwise? We are, as Jacob has
already remarked, outcasts in this city. O there is no conspiracy against us, no pressures are brought to bear on us, we are free to come and go, to congregate, to hatch plots even, if we wish; we
are—” he shrugged “—free. But what does it signify, this objectless freedom? Only that we are not feared, because the times themselves ensure that men such as we shall not
be heeded. In a bad age the wise man is scorned.” He paused in his pacing and looked about him at the company with a fond melancholy smile. “Regard us, sir: we are scholars, we are
philosophers and scientists and poets, but we are not activists. Yet now, here in Bologna and throughout Italy and all Europe, action is necessary. Who will act if we do not? As Platonists we know
that justice and good government are possible only when power rests in the hands of the philosophers. Therefore we must have power. How are we to achieve it? Herr Koppernigk, let me be specific: we
seek—” Calcagnini stirred nervously, but Novara disregarded him “—we seek, sir, firstly union between our city state and Rome, and beyond that, O far beyond that, a Europe
united under papal rule. A new, strong and united Holy Roman Empire—that is our aim, no less than that.”

Nicolas blinked. Calcagnini coughed drily.

“I think, Domenico,” he murmured, “I think you have forgotten a most important thing.” He looked at Nicolas. “We seek, yes, a Europe united,
but only under a
Pope of our making.
His Holiness Alexander will not do, he will not do at all.” A ripple of bitter amusement passed through the room. Novara nodded.

“Of course,” he said, not without a trace of irritation, and bowed to the poet, “a most important point assuredly. A Pope, yes, of our making. We have even considered
candidates; does that surprise you, Herr Koppernigk? We are in earnest, you see. We have for instance considered Alexander’s bastard Cesare. Luca’s horoscope, however, is not
encouraging, and tends to confirm the grave doubts we have for some time been entertaining in that quarter. I think we must look elsewhere.” And he looked with a smile upon Nicolas, who after
a moment’s reflection sat upright suddenly and said:

“O but you cannot imagine that I—I mean, surely not!”

They stared at him, and then Novara laughed somewhat uneasily.

“Ah,” he said, “a joke; I see. I did not at first—very droll, yes.”

Calcagnini joined his fingers at the tips and tapped that spire thoughtfully against his pursed lips, saying:

“We thought: What if we should discover that there is in Bologna a young churchman from the north, a scientist, whose uncle is Bishop of a Prussian princedom and a voice of no little
significance in the affairs of Europe? And what if we should discover further that this young scientist is a thinker of potential greatness? Would he not be, to use a cold word, useful? These are
strange times. The world is yielding up its secrets to those who know how to look for them. What if it should come to our ears that this young man has been cautiously expounding the outlines of a
planetary theory which, if proved, should compel us to reconsider our conception of the nature of the physical world? We said: What if we were to provide for this astronomer certain
facilities—a villa in the quiet of the provinces, say, and ample funds to enable him to spend two or three years in study and research—if, in short, we were to provide him with the
means of perfecting this new theory of his? Now the Church, as we all know, is free apparently to indulge in all manner of fleshly vices, but it is not free to indulge in speculations that run
contrary to dogma: for dogma is unassailable. And whose is the task of ensuring the inviolability of dogma? Why, it is the Pope’s! Now, what if our young astronomer, at the end of this two or
three years of seclusion, should travel to Prussia and present to his uncle the proofs of his new theory? It is well known that the Bishop of Ermland is no friend of Rome’s, and especially
not of Alexander, this bloated Borgia despot. Does it not seem likely that within a short time all Europe would be rife with reports of this new and apparently blasphemous theory? And Alexander
would be forced to act. But the Bishop of Ermland is not the only enemy that the Pope has; his enemies are legion. In that battle, then, between a theory mathematically verified and vouched for
beyond all doubt, and a bad Pope, who, we wondered, would be likely to win? It seemed to us that the only possible outcome would be a new conclave of the College of Cardinals; and thus the cause of
the Church would be served, and our cause, and also of course, Herr Koppernigk, yours. These are questions, you understand, that we have been putting to ourselves for some time past. We hoped that
you might be able to help us to find the answers. Hmm?”

But Nicolas was engrossed in the wonderfully ridiculous image of himself and Bishop Lucas deep in dark discussion of a plot to bring down the Pope, and he said only:

“Sir, you do not know my uncle.”

It was a poor reply to such a speech, but it hardly mattered, for the company, strangely, had lost all interest in him. The dandy and his friends, amid shrieks of laughter, were trying to force
the hound to drink a goblet of wine. Novara stood by the window gazing vacantly at the far hills. Nicolas was reminded of an audience grown bored with a play. The singer had crept back into their
midst with a tentative uncertain grin, no longer the mysterious priestly figure that their attentions had made him seem before, but a soulful, sad, unloved and unlovely weird madman. Guarico had
fallen asleep. Calcagnini smiled blearily, nodding. He was drunk. They were all drunk. Nicolas rose to go. The scrawny Nono, giggling and stammering and trembling all over, crept after him and made
an inept and farcical attempt at seduction.

*

Andreas pushed his platter away and belched sourly. A scullion passed by their table, lugging a steaming urn, and he turned to watch her joggling haunches. Dreamily he
said:

“They are all
Italians
, of course,” and he smiled at his brother suddenly, icily. “Yes, bumboys all.”

Nicolas went no more to Novara’s house, and stayed away from his lectures. By Christmastide he had left Bologna forever.

*     *     *

T
he city crouched, sweating in fright, under the sign of the brooding bull. Talk of portents was rife. Blood rained from the sky at noon, at night
the deserted streets shook with the thunder of unearthly hoofbeats and weird cries filled the air. A woman at Ostia come to her time brought forth an issue of rats. Some said it was the reign of
Antichrist, and that the end was nigh. In February the Pope’s son Cesare returned victorious from the Romagna and rode in triumph with his army through the cheering streets. He was clad for
the occasion all in black, with a collar of gold blazing at his throat. The entire army likewise was draped in black. It seemed, in the brumous yellowy light of that winter day, that the Lord of
Darkness himself had come forth to be acclaimed by the delirious mob.

This was Rome, in the jubilee year of 1500.

*

The brothers had moved south to the capital on the instructions of Uncle Lucas: they were to act as unofficial ambassadors of the Frauenburg Chapter at the jubilee
celebrations. It was a nebulous posting. They performed during that year only one duty that could have been considered in any way connected with diplomacy, when they dined at the Vatican as guests
of a minor papal official, a smooth foxy cleric with a disconcerting wall-eyed stare, who desired, as far as the brothers could ascertain from his elaborately veiled insinuations, to be reassured
that Bishop Lucas’s loyalty to Rome was in no danger of being transferred to the King of Poland; and they might have made a serious blunder, inexperienced as they were in matters of such
delicacy, had not the grey and cautious Canon Schiller, the representative of the Frauenburg Chapter, been there to guide them with astutely timed and enthusiastically administered kicks under the
table.

It was with Schiller that they lodged, in a gloomy villa on the damp side of a hill near the Circo Massimo, where the food was stolidly Prussian and the air heavy with the odour of sanctity.
Nicolas glumly accepted the discipline and arid rituals of the house; from his schooldays on he had been accustomed to that kind of thing, and expected nothing better. Andreas, however, chafed
under Canon Schiller’s watchful eye, in which there was reflected, all the way from Prussia, the light of a far fiercer, icier gaze. Lately he had become more morose than ever, his rages were
redder, his fits of melancholia less and less amenable to the curative pleasures of student life. What had once in him been fecklessness was now a thirst for small destructions; his gay cynicism
had turned into something very like despair. He complained vaguely of being ill. His face was drawn and pallid, eyes shot with blood, his breathing oddly thin and papery. He began to frequent the
booths of astrologers and fortune tellers of the worst kind. Once even he asked Nicolas to cast his horoscope, which Nicolas, appalled at the idea, refused to do, pleading not very convincingly a
lack of skill. Uncle Lucas had secured a canonry at Frauenburg for Andreas, and for a time his finances flourished, but he was soon penniless again, and, worse, in the hands of the Jews. Nicolas
watched helplessly his brother’s life disintegrate; it was like witnessing the terrible slow fall into the depths of a once glorious marvellously shining angel.

Yet Andreas loved Rome. In that wicked wolf-suckled city his peculiar talents came briefly to full flower, nourished by the pervading air of menace and intrigue. He spoke the language of these
scheming worldly churchmen, and it was not long before he had found his way into the cliques and cabals that abounded at the papal court. In the eyes of the world he was a firebrand, brilliant,
careless, and hedonistic, destined for great things. Schiller cautioned him on the manner of his life. He paid no heed. He was by then treading waters deeper than that Canon could conceive of. But
he was out over jagged reefs, and his light was being extinguished; he was drowning.

Nicolas detested the capital. It reminded him of an old tawny lion dying in the sun, on whose scarred and smelly pelt the lice bred and feverishly fed in final frantic carnival. He was shocked
by what he saw of the workings of the Church. God had been deposed here, and Rodrigo Borgia ruled in his place. On Easter Sunday two hundred thousand pilgrims knelt in St Peter’s Square to
receive the blessing of the Pope; Nicolas was there, pressed about by the poor foolish faithful who sighed and swayed like a vast lung, lifting their faces trustingly toward the hot sun of spring.
He wondered if perhaps the tavern prophets were right, if this was the end, if here today a last terrible blessing was being administered to the city and the world.

In July Lucrezia Borgia’s husband, Alfonso Duke of Bisceglie, was savagely attacked on the steps of St Peter’s; Cesare was behind the outrage, so it was whispered. The rumours seemed
confirmed some weeks later when
Il Valentino’s
man, Don Michelotto, broke into Alfonso’s sickroom in the Vatican and throttled the Duke in his bed. Nicolas recalled a certain
strange day in Bologna, and wondered. But of course it was altogether mad to think that Novara and his friends could be in any way involved in these bloody doings, or so at least the Professor
himself insisted when one day, by chance, Nicolas met him on the street near the amphitheatre of Vespasian.

“No no!” Novara whispered hoarsely, glancing nervously about. “How can you imagine such a thing? In fact the Duke knew something of our views, and was not unsympathetic.
Certainly we wished him no harm. It is too terrible, truly. And to think that we once considered this Cesare as . . . O, terrible!”

He was paying a brief visit to Rome on university business. Nicolas was shocked by his appearance. He was stooped and sallow, with dead eyes and trembling hands, hardly recognisable as the
magisterial, cold and confident patrician he had lately been. He frowned distractedly and mopped his brow, tormented by the heat and the dust and the uproar of the traffic. He was dying. A slender
bored young man got up in scarlet accompanied him, and stood by in insolent silence with one hand resting on his hip; his name was Girolamo. He smiled at Nicolas, who suddenly remembered where he
had seen him before, and blushed and turned away only to find to his horror Novara watching him with tears in his eyes.

“You think me a fool, Koppernigk,” he said. “You came to my house only to laugh at me—O yes, do not deny it, your brother told me how you laughed after running away from
us that day. My scheming and my magic, I suppose they must have seemed foolish to you, whose concern is facts, computation, the laws of the visible world.”

Nicolas groaned inwardly. Why were people, Andreas always, now Novara, so eager that he should think well of them? What did his opinion matter? He said:

“My brother lied; he is prone to it. Why should I laugh at you? You are a greater astronomer than I.” This was horrible, horrible. “I left your house because I knew I could be
of no use to you. What part could I play in your schemes—” he could not resist it “—I, a mere tradesman’s son?”

Novara nodded, grimacing. The sun rained hammerblows on him. He had the look of a wounded animal.

“You lack charity, my friend,” he said. “You must try to understand that men have need of answers, articles of faith, myths—lies, if you will. The world is terrible and
yet we are terrified to leave it: that is the paradox that hurts us so. Does anything hurt you, Koppernigk? Yours is an enviable immunity, but I wonder if it will endure.”